Ishu has a few “ABC” books. His Didi gave him her copy of this fun alphabet book that I’m obsessed with. I catch myself always trying to study the pictures, seeing if I can find anything else that starts with the letter “b.”

He also has this sensory ABC book with big, bright pictures.

And, more recently, we ordered this Elmo lift-the-flaps book, which has a page dedicated to the alphabet.

“A-B-thee,” he says as he carries one of these books to me to read to him, yet again.

He loves when we get to “G,” so he can shout out, “GEE-YAFF.”

But my favorite page is “J,” when we get to “jack-in-the-box.”

“Jah…bots,” he says.

I don’t even know when he learned that one. But it makes me smile every time. He has NO IDEA what a jack-in-the-box is – has never seen one in real life before, has never wound one up and seen scary “Jack” pop up and out of the box – but can identify it when he sees a picture of it. Because he’s read these books so damn much.

Anyway, recently when we’re at the playground, Ishu loves to run over to the signs up on the railings.

In big, bold letters, they say, “NO DOGS ALLOWED IN PLAYGROUND AREA.”

He, obviously, doesn’t know what it says. Or what it means.

But he likes them. He runs up to them, squats down, smiles real big, and says, “A-B-THEEs, A-B-THEEs.”

I will respond, “Yeah, those are some of the letters. A-B-Cs.”

He touches the sign. Not quite tracing things. But running his finger over the elevated letters.

Curious, I asked him one time, “Ishu, do you know where the ‘A’ is?”

And, to my shock, he could point to an “A.”

“A,” he says. “App-le,” as he pretends to crunch an apple.

He can do this with a few letters.

And I REALLY, HONEST-TO-GOD, am not lying when I say we don’t sit there and practice our letters.

We simply read him a book when he asks us to read it to him.

This is probably why experts tell us we don’t need to constantly be shoving all those academic skills down their throat from the minute they come out of the womb.

Maybe, if we let them explore and read to them and play with them, they’ll learn all the shit anyways. Because they’re exposed to it in their books and their natural environment.

I was blown away. And, honestly, when he did that, there was a small, TINY part of me that was thinking, “WOAH, you can do this? Maybe we should sit there and PRACTICE THEM ALL.”

A small part.

A tiny part. That Indian part of me where we’ve watched generations of parents train their kids from the get-go. Flashcards and all.

But then I brushed it off.

My kid is able to do so many different things and it’s NOT because I’m sitting there explicitly teaching him the letters and the numbers and the colors. I’m just letting him play, read books, and explore.

So, instead of getting carried away with the notion that I need to be doing MORE since he CAN do things, I am simply going to carry on doing what I’m doing.

Which is…

…absolutely nothing.

Except occasionally giving him a couple of things to play with, taking him to the playground, and reading him books when he throws them in my lap.

His favorite, A-B-Thee books.

Questions of the Day:

What were your favorite books growing up?